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AN APPEAL 



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) PEOPLE OE MARYLAND, 



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ANNAPOLIS, AUGUST 1st., 1868. 






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S ANNAPOLIS: 

ROBERT F. BONSALL, PRINTER. 



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AN APPEAL 



TO THE 



PEOPLE OF MARYLAND, 



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ANNAPOLIS, AUGUST 1st., 1868. 



5" ANNAPoiiis: 
JaOBERT F. BONSALL, PRINTED. 

1868. 



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ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, 

Annapolis, August 1st, 1868. 

To the People of the State of Maryland: 

The Board of Visitors and Governors of St. John's Col- 
lege, in making an earnest appeal to the people of Maryland, on 
behalf of that institution, beg leave to preface their statement 
with a brief recital of its history, believing that in that history 
may be found the records of a gratifying success, as well as the 
sufficient explanation of subsequent disappointments, and the as- 
surance of a growing and permanent career of usefulness await- 
ing the College in the future, if it shall receive at the hands 
of Marylanders the confidence and support to which it is en- 
titled. In making this recital, it will be their aim to avoid all 
prolixity of detail, and to touch only on the topics essential to an 
exposition of the successive events which have given color and 
complexion to the changing fortunes of the College. 

As St. John's College is but a continuation and enlargement 
of an earlier institution of learning, founded at Annapolis to- 
wards the close of the Itth century, under the auspices of the 
then reigning sovereign of Great Britain, it is proper that the 
distinctive history of the College should begin with a brief refer- 
ence to the famous ''King William School,'''' which was so large- 
ly auxiliary to its foundation, the Visitors and Trustees of that 
school being among the largest contributors to the original estab- 
lishment of the College, and finally merging the operations of the 
former in those of the latter. 

During the reign of William the Third, in the year 1696, the 
Colonial Legislature of Maryland passed a ''Petitionary Act,^^ 
praying for the establishment of "a Free School in Anne Arundel 
Town, upon the Severn River," with corporate powers and privi^ 
leges authorizing its Bector, Governors and Visitors, according 
to the revenues which might subsequently come into their pos- 
session, to found a similar Free School in every county of the 
Province. 

This "Petitionary Act" was not declared to be in force until 
the year 1T04, under the reign of Queen Anne, and the school 



itself appears to have commenced its operations soon after the 
latter date. We know, from authentic history, that under the ad- 
ministration of able and laborious Rectors from its earliest Head 
Master to Brefhard, the teacher of Pinkney and his coevals, it 
continued to send forth a succession of educated youth, well 
qualified to discharge the duties and meet the responsibili- 
ties of active life in the Church and in the State. If, as 
has been said, the University of Leyden might point to the 
single name of Grotius as a sufficient evidence of its power for 
good in Holland, so the Kinjf William School might rest its claim 
to honorable repute on the smgle name of that distinguished ora- 
tor, jurist and statesman whom it gave, not only to Maryland, 
but to the whole country, in the person of the illustrious William 
Pinkney. But, in fact, the fostering mother of a Pinkney 
could also point with legitimate pride to many others among her 
sons, second only to him because of the towering fame won by 
his transcendent eloquence, his talents and his public honors. 

If, during the pendency of the Revolutionary War, the King 
William School may have, in any degree, intermitted its opera- 
tions, owing to the troubles of the time, it is evident that, at the 
close of that long struggle, the people of Maryland were more 
than ever convinced that institutions of learning are indispensable 
to the success of the free popular government which they had 
reared on the ruins of the British monarchy. Accordingly, we 
find the Legislature of Maryland, as early as 1Y82, taking 
thought for the establishment of a College on each shore of the 
Chesapeake, Avith a vicAV to their subsequent union under "one 
supreme legislative and visitorial jurisdiction," and it was in 
pursuance of this policy that Washington College was founded 
on the Ilastern Shore, and St. John's College on the Western 
Shore, of that Ba}^. The charter of the latter was granted in the 
year 1*184, and sufficiently attests^ by its well considered pro- 
visions, the comprehensive intelligence which guided its framers 
in their effort to lay the foundations of an institution fitted to 
"train up and perpetuate a succession of able and honest men for 
discharging the various offices and duties of life, both civil and 
religious, with usefulness and reputation." The charter of St. 
John's College expressly purports to have been granted by the 
Legislature of Maryland in furtherance of the voluntary exertions of 
"ma.ny public spirited individuals," who, as its preamble recites, 
"from an earnest desire to promote the founding of a College," 



had subscribetl, and procured subscriptions for this purpose, to a 
considerable amount. Among those who were active in promot- 
ing this enterprise, we need but cite the honored names of 
Charles Carroll, of CarroUton, William Paca, Daniel of St. Thom- 
as Jenifer, Samuel Chase, Thomas Stone, John Eager Howard, 
Richard Ridgely, G^eorge Plater, Luther Martin, Jeremiah Town- 
ley Chase, Alexander Contee Hanson, the Right Reverend Thos. 
John Clagett, Robert Bowie, the Eversfields, Benedict Calvert, 
Benjamin Stoddard, Ceo. Digges, Gerard B. Causin, John Chap- 
man, John Sterrett, David McMachpi, Daniel Bowley, Robert 
Gilmor, Otho H. Williams, George Lux, and many others 
of kindred excellence and distinction, in order to show how 
wide-spread and how enlightened, as well as influential, was 
the spontaneous movement which resulted in the foundation 
of this College. And that its founders were no less liberal 
m spirit tiian comprehensive in their constituents, may be 
seen in the significant fact that among the original agents 
appointed by the Legislature of the State to solicit and re- 
ceive subscriptions for its foundation, were clergymen of the 
most divergent christian creeds, but who nevertheless cordially 
harmonized in the "principles of perfect equality in religion,'- 
upon a recognition of which the College was founded, as an 
institution of the State. Among these constituent agents were 
the most R-everend John Carroll, the first Roman Catholic 
Archbishop of America, and the Reverend Doctors William 
Smith and Patrick Allison, eminent divines respectively of the 
Protestant Episcopal and Pi-esbyterian Churches. 

In the year 1785, the Rector, Visitors and Governors of the 
"King William School," in Annapolis, represented to the General 
Assembly that they were "desirous of appropriating the funds 
belonging to said school, to the benefit, support and maintenance 
of St. John's College, in such a manner as shall be consistent 
with, and better fulfil the intentions of the founders and benefac- 
tors of the former." Their request was granted, and in the follow- 
ing year the two institutions were consolidated. The "founders 
and benefactors" of the King William School thus became, as has 
been already intimated, among the most liberal subscribers to the 
early endowment of St. John's College. 

Such were the circumstances under which this institution Avas 
founded by distinguished citizens of Maryland contemporaneous 
with the revolutionary era. The General Assembly, in consider- 



ation of the contributions voluntarily made, and to be made for 
the purpose of founding such a College, (these contributions 
amounted to $32,000 — a large sum at that period, immediately 
after the exhaustion left by a long war,) granted to its founders 
a liberal charter, and, by one of the sections of this charter, en- 
tered into the following contract with the original subscribers 
and their successors. We quote the XlXth section of the char- 
ter : 

"And, to provide a permanent fund for the further encouragement and es- 
tablishment of the said College on the Western Shore, be it enacted, that 
the sum of one thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds current money, be 
annually and forever hereafter given and granted as a donation by the public 
to the use of the said College on the Western Shore, to be applied by the 
Visitors and Governors of the said College to the payment of salaries to the 
Principal, Professsors and Tutors of the said College." 

The College commenced its operations in the year 1189, and 
continued for many years to fill the measure of its usefulness, in 
affording the opportunities of a liberal education not only to the 
children of Maryland, but also to the youth of adjoining States, 
who enrolled themselves among its matriculates, attracted by the 
fame of its Professors for learning and skill in the art of teaching. 
General Washington selected it among all the colleges of the land, 
as the foster-mother of his adopted son, George Washington Parke 
Custis, and the institution was already gaining that strength and 
prestige which vigorous growth and ripening age can alone im- 
part, when, in the session of 1805, in an evil day for the history 
alike of Maryland and of St. John's College, the Legislature 
Avithheld the annual donation, pledged in perpetuity by the 19th 
section of the charter. 

The Act withdrawing this donation, and assuming formally to 
repeal and annul the contract stipulating for its payment, was 
passed on the 25th of January 1806. AVell did William Pinkney, 
who eloquently, but vainty, remonstrated against the passage of 
the Act, predict that "the day which witnessed the degradation 
of St. John's College," in the very dawn of its promise, would 
prove "the darkest day Maryland had known," for by this Act 
her citizens were deprived at once of a College to which they 
could point with pride for what it had already done, and with 
hope for the greater good it might do in the future. 

Thus suddenly divested of a large part of the revenues upon 
which it had counted for paying the salaries of its officers^ the 



College soon afterwards closed its doors for a time, or opened 
them only for the admission of a limited number of youth, accord- 
ing to the reduced number of its teachers. It should not so 
much be a source of wonder that its growth was checked and its 
prosperity blasted by this untimely and cruel blow, as that its 
very existence was not terminated by such a catastrophe, which 
weakened alike its material resources and its moral strength. — 
As if deploring, in some measure, the blight it had brought on the 
growing honors of the College, the Legislature, at its session of 
1811, restored to the institution an annual donation of $1,000. — 
In the session of 1832, this annuity was enlarged by the addi- 
tion of two thousand dollars, made annually payable to the Yisi- 
toi-s and Governors, provided they should agree to accept the 
same, "in full satisfaction of all legal or equitable claims which 
they might have, or be supposed to have, against the State," by 
reason of its failure to pay the full amount of the donation made 
annually payable by the terms of the charter. The arrearages of 
the annuity at this time amounted to about $100,000; but the 
Visitors and Grovernors of that period, pressed by the pecuniary 
necessities of the College, accepted the proposition of the Legisla- 
ture, and agreed to the release that was required as a condition 
of receiving this annual grant, which still fell $11Q1 below the 
annual amount stipulated by the 19th section of the charter, be- 
sides leaving the aggregate arrearage of $100,000 unpaid. 

It was held and believed by the guardians of the College, 
that the terms of the 19th section of its charter consti- 
tuted a contract on the part of the State, and that, as such, it 
could not be repealed by the Legislature. In order to procure 
under this head the legal opinion of the Judges composing the 
highest Court of Maryland, the Legislature, by an Act passed 
in 1858, authorized "such proceedings to be instituted as may 
be necessary to obtain the opinion of the Judges of the Court 
of Appeals," on the three following questions: 

1st. Whether the annual appropriations made by the 19th sec- 
tion of the Act of 1184, (chap. 37,) of the sum of £1750, current 
money, &c., constitutes a contract on the part of the State, under 
all the circumstances of the case, which could not be legally re- 
pealed by the Act of 1805, (chap. 85,) by the Legislature of this 
State. 

2nd. Whether this latter act is not in violation of the 10th sec- 
tion of the 1st Article of the Constitution of the United States, 



f 



which declares that "no State shall pass any law impairing the* 
obligation of contracts.'' And 

8rd. Whether the former Act, with the circumstances of 
the case, constituted such a contract as would, if entered into be- 
tween individual citizens, be legally binding upon them ? 

The questions thus submitted to the members of the highest 
Court in Maryland, were decided at its December term in 
1859, and they were all decided unanimously in the affir- 
mative ; that is, in favor of the legal and equitable rights of the 
College under its charter, notwithstanding the subsequent Act of 
18f5, under color of which- those rights had been infringed by the 
Legislature. In reaching their conclusions the Court held the fol- 
lowing language : 

"The duty of this Conrt is plam. It is to ascertain whether, under the 
decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Act of 1784, is a 
contract which the Legislature could not impair or annul. That it was such, 
on the principles laid down by the Supreme Court in its interpretation of the 
meaning of the word "confrocf," as used in the 10th section of the 1st Article 
of the Constitution, in our judgment ought not to admit of a doubt." 

The case is reported at length in 15 Md. Reports, p. 330. 

The legality and equity of its claims, in themselves considered, 
being thus ascertained, the College next sought to procure their 
allowance or enforcement by the same tribunal. 

The 16th section of the College charter contains the follow- 
ing provision: 

"In case at any time hereafter^ through oversight, or otherwise through 
misapprehensions and mistaken constructions of the powers, liberties and fran- 
chiseSf in this charter or act of incorporation granted or intended to be 
granted, any ordinance should be made by the said corporation of Visitors 
and Governors, or any matters done and transacted by the corporation, con- 
trary to the tenor thereof, it is enacted, that although all such ordinances/ 
acts and doings, shall in themselves be null and void, yet they shall not, 
however, in any Courts of law, or by the General Assembly, be deemed, 
taken, interpreted or adjudged, into an avoidance or forfeiture of this char- 
ter and act of incorporation, but the same shall he and remain unhurt, invio- 
late and entire, unto the said corporation of Visitors and Governors, in perpettial 
succession; and all their acts conformable to the powers, true intent and 
meaning hereof, shall be and remain in full force and validity, the nullity 
and avoidance of such illegal acts to the contrary in anywise notwithstand- 
ing." 

In view of this aigniiicaut provision, intended to guard the 
vested rights of the corporation against "misapprehensions and 



mistaken constructions of the powers, liberties and franchises" 
conferred by its charter, many enlightened friends of the Col- 
lege were advised that the Board of 1832 had transcended 
their powers in accepting the compromise of that year, and 
that hence their act, in waiving to a large extent the legal 
claims of the College, could not be sustained in law or equity as 
against its chartered rights. But the Court held that the 
Visitors and Governors could not avoid the release which they 
had given as the condition precedent of receiving the increased 
annuity of 1832, insomuch that, to cite the language of the 
Court, "having accepted the proposals of the Legislature, akd. 
by their solemn and formal release having discharged and extin- 
guished the claim made here, they have deprived themselves of 
all power as Well as right to assert and again maintain it." 
(23 Md. Reports, p. 629.) 

But while this was the aspect in which the ca;se techni- 
cally presented itself to the Court, when called to afford to the 
Board a remedy for the wrong ascertained by the earlier deci- 
sion, there was of course no such restraint laid upon the Legisla- 
ture in the premises, but, on the contrary, all the facts and cir- 
cumstances of the case constituted a powerful plea in favor of re- 
pairing the damage done to the College by the withdrawal of the 
stipulated State donation. Accordingly, the "Visitors and Gov- 
ernors of the College, before appealing from the last decision of 
the Maryland State Court to the Supreme Court of the United 
States, addressed an earnest appeal in behalf of the College to 
the General Assembly, in a memorial which is recorded in the 
Journal of the House for January 22d, 1866. 

In that memorial, they &et forth their claims, and state that 
"they will be doing violence to their own feelings as Marylanders, 
in seeking redress for the wrongs of the oldest Maryland Literary 
Institutron in a tribunal beyond its jurisdiction and territory; 
and before they take that course, your memorialists are anxious 
to do all in their power to repair the losses sustained by the Col- 
lege through the unwise and joint action of their own predeces- 
sors, and the predecessors of your Honorable Bodies, in enacting 
and executing the resolution of 1832, however important or ne- 
cessary at that time they may have deemed it to be." And in 
response to this memoral. the General Assembly at that session, 
by the Act of 1866, (chapter 101,) restored the arrearages of the 
annuity of $3,000, which had been suspended during the war, 



> 



10 

and appropriated to the College twelve thoa'sand dollars aflnaai^- 
ly, on and after the first day of June, 1868, for the term of fiver 
years. 

Accepting this beneficent legislation as a practical acknowl- 
edgment of the chartered rights on tvhich they had hased their 
appeal, and seeing in it, moreover, an earnest of the generous 
consideration which the College might hereafter hope to receive 
at the hands of the General Assemtty, the Board of Visitors and 
Governors abandoned all further litigation, frankly accepted the 
bounty of the State as a final composition of their claims, and 
proceeded at once to take measures for the thorough and com- 
prehensive re-organization of the institution on a basis more lib- 
eral and solid than had ever before been attempted. 

Their first care naturally was to place a Faculty, adequate 
equally in point of learning and numbers, over the institution, and,, 
this task has been satisfactorily accomplished. Desiring, at the 
same time, to return to the State, in the most effective form, the 
fruits of the bounty entrusted to their care and administration, 
the Board of Visitors and Governors, in anticipation of the in- 
creased endowment bestowed by the State, enacted the following 
ordinance on the 4th of February 1868: 

*'Be it ordained by tfie Board of Visitors and Governors of Sf . John's Col- 
lege, and it is hereby ordained, that one hundred and fifty State Scholarships 
are hereby establishied for the encouragement of good conduci and scholarly 
attainmeDts in the incorporated acaderaiesy and in ^he public and private 
schools of the State of Maryland, subject to the following conditions, to wit; 

*'Ist. Each Scholarship shall entitle the holder in whose name it may be 
issued, to exemption from the payment of rootn-rent and tuition fees in any 
department of St. John's College. 

*'2d. Each Senatorial District of the State shall be entitled to six of said 
Scholarships in St. John's College, the same to be filled by the School Com- 
missioners of said District, having regard to the objects above indicated -^ 
and in case more than six shall be nominated from any one of saidipistrictsy 
the Faculty shall select therel'rom the six best qualified to enter the College. 
All scholars thus selected shall he required to conform to the ru?es and regu- 
lations of St. John's College. Whenever any vacancy shall occur in said 
Scholarships, the same shall be reported by the Principal to the Board of 
School Commissioners of the District in which said vacancy may have oc- 
curred. 

"3d. In addition to furnishing tuition and room-rent, the College authori- 
ties will supply board in the College commons, including fuel, lights, wash- 
ing and text-books, to any one who shall pay not exceeding one hundred and 
seventy-five dollars per annum ; or if. as is probable, bo?rd can be secured 
in private families, or in clubs, at a lower rate, scholars will be permitted, 
upon the application of the parents, guardians or patrons of said scholars, i<j 
avail themselves of that privilege." 



II 

The Principal <i)f the College, acting under the direction of the 
Board, has officially notified the Commissioners of the Public 
Schools in every County and Senatorial District in the State, that 
the College is now ready to receive the nominations of incum- 
bents who propose to avail themselves of the unequalled advan- 
tages offered by this system of State Scholarships — a system 
which affords to 0P.e hundred and fifty of the youth of Maryland 
the opportunity of procuring a liberal education at an expense 
greatly less than that offered hy any -similar institution in the 
country. As it is the avowed design of the Board, in establish- 
ing these scholarships, to make them "the prizes of an honorable 
ambition," it need not be added that to receive an education on 
this basis, will be in iti^elf "a badge of distinction and an evidence 
of merit." As such, they have m.ade these scholarships open to 
all, and in order to guard against even the suspicion of partiality 
or narrow-mindedness in the administration of the system, they 
have reposed the duty of making nominations in the hands of the 
School Commissioners in each County and Senatorial District, as 
these functionaries, from their imniediate responsibility to the 
people of their several districts may be expected to discharge this 
duty with a peculiar zeal, and with an intelligence imparted by 
their personal knowledge of the circumstances under which each 
nomination shall be made. 

The Faculty of the College consists at present of seven Profes- 
sors, (including the Principal,) and one Tutor. The number of 
pupils who have matriculated in the institution during the schol- 
astic year that has just closed, is one hundred and fifteen. The 
success which has already attended their efforts since the re- 
organization of the College in the year 1866, affords to the Board 
the augury of a still greater success in the year before them, if 
the friends of education in Maryland shall lend to the efforts of 
the Board and of the Faculty that countenance and support 
which it is believed may now be justly claimed on behalf of the 
institution committed to their care. With a Faculty at once 
learned and efficient in the discharge of their duties, with ample 
buildings, representing a money value of $200,000, tasteful in 
their architecture and fitted for the comfortable reception and en- 
tertainment of two hundred pupils, with adjacent grounds, whose 
natural beauty of situation has been heightened by art, with a 
system of free scholarships not only unsurpassed, but, it is be- 
lieved, unequalled by that of any American College, the authori- 



12 

ties of St. John's confidently commend it to the patronage and 
support of the friends of education in Maryland, under a profound 
sense of the necessity which exists for such an institution as they 
have sought to create, and an equall}' full assurance that they 
have done much to meet that necessity. Limited as have been 
the resources of the College since the resumption of its duties in 
1810, the Board point with undissembled pride to the large pro- 
portion of its graduates, who, since that date, as well as in the 
earlier period of its history, have risen to eminence in every walk 
of public and private life — adorning the bench, the bar, the pul- 
pit, the halls of legislation, both State and Federal, and within 
the last few weeks, at the unanimous call of his countrymen, con- 
tributing one among the most illustrious olf her sons to represent 
the nation at the proudest court of Europe. The record of the 
past is an earnest of brighter auguries for the future, and consti- 
tutes a cogent plea in favor of conferring upon St John's Col- 
lege the opportunity of wider power for good. § 

Much as has been recently done for the enlargement of the Col- 
lege in its resources and in its scheme of education, still more 
remains to be done for its better equipment and greater exten- 
sion, that it may still more beneficently fill the measure of its- 
usefulness, according no less to the liberal designs of its original 
founders, than with a view to meet the existing educational 
wants of the State. And believing that the people of Maryland 
will respond at the present day to the appeal of the Board, no 
less generously than their fathers did after the war of the revolu- 
tion, when, in the words of St. John's College charter, they em- 
braced ''the present favorable occasion of peace and prosperity 
for making lasting provision for the encouragement and advance- 
ment of all useful knowledge and literature through every part of 
the State," the Board have authorized the Principal of the College, 
James C. Welling, LL.D., and its Yice-Principal, the Rev. Cle- 
land K. Nelson, D.D., to visit different parts of the State during 
the coming vacation, and at later periods, according to their leis- 
ure, for the purpose of addressing the people on the subject of 
education in Maryland, as also for the purpose of soliciting and 
receiving any contributions in money, books, apparatus, <fec., for 
the extension of the educational advantages of St. John's College; 
for the replenishment of its library, and for the enrichment of its 
museum in specimens adapted to illustrate the several branches 
of Natural History and Science. What form the benevolence of 



13 

patrons and friends shall take, is remitted, of course, to the en- 
lightened generosity of individual donors, the Board merely sug- 
gesting that no contribution to the resources of the College, how- 
ever small, will* be lightly esteemed when it is made in love for 
the cause of letters and learning in Maryland, a cause commend- 
ed to all Marylanders, no less by the pride they take in the re- 
pute of their State, (now without any such institution on which 
she can look with entire complacency,) than by the interest they 
should take in her highest welfare. A single book placed in the 
alcoves of the library may be a permanent source of blessing to 
the 3tate — a source not to be despised when we recollect that 
Benjamin Franklin traced the "turn of his thinking," and the in- 
fluence which shaped "some of the principal future events of his 
life," to the perusal of two little books, so unpretending and ap- 
parently so insignificant as Defoe's "Essay on Projects," and 
Cotton Mather's "Essay to do Good." 

In the year ItOO, ten clergymen met at the town of Branford, 
in Connecticut, to deliberate on the expediency of founding a 
College in that State. Each came bringing in his hands a few 
volumes which he laid on the table with the words: "I give 
these books for founding a College in Connecticut." That con- 
tribution of forty folio volumes was the beginning of Yale Col- 
lege, and the nucleus of those ever-growing and increasing bene- 
factions which have subsequently made this institution one of the 
richest, as it is also one of the oldest and most useful in the whole 
land. 

•To those who are blest with the larger means that may enable 
them to endow a Professorship, or a Scholarship, "the luxury of 
doing good," is afforded in a way which shall make their bene- 
ficence the exuberant fountain of a blessing to the State, at 
once copious and enduring. In the long list of "grants and 
donations" made to Harvard College, in Massachusetts — a list 
filling twenty-one closely and finely printed pages, in octavo 
— the first place, in point of time, is given to the munificent 
bequest of its nominal founder, John Harvard, who, by his 
timely donation of £tT9, in 1638, converted an obscure Grram- 
mar School, of precarious prospects, at Cambridge, into the first 
permanent College of America ; while the second place on this 
long catalogue of benefactors, is assigned to the unpretending 
gift of "a font of types," made in the following year by a printer, 
who, otherwise unknown, was a humbler but perhaps a no less 



14 

fervent friend of iearning. The Board of Yisitors and Governor.- 
charged with the management of St. John's College, desire, in 
like manner, to open a roll of honor on which to record the 
names of all those who shall help in any way to build up that 
institution on the liberal foundation already laid by the Revolu- 
tionary Fathers. 

Such a list already exists, and at its head stand the names of 
the generous citizens who, at different periods, have contributed 
to the erection of the College buildings of St. John's — buildings 
which, it is proper to observe, have been erected by private 
munificence, not by public bounty; the names of benefactors 
like Lewis Xeth, who left his entire library as a bequest 
to the College; or like David Hoffman, LL.D., and Mrs. 
George Law, and Prof. Julius T. Ducatel, who have en- 
riched its well-stored museums by the gift of valuable mine- 
erals and shells. The Board gratefully take this occasion to 
make their public acknowledgments also to Dr. Thomas B. 
Wilson, of Philadelphia, who has recently presented to the 
College Library more than a hundred volumes, comprising the 
works of Buffon, a valuable collection of the Transactions of the 
Academy of Sciences at Berlin, &c. "Would that the list might 
soon grow as long as that which, during every year, is solemnly 
recited at Oxford, at the beginning of each term, and on other 
public days, when the names of those who have been the bene- 
factors of the University receive honorary mention and grateful 
commemoration. 

It is common to resist appeals like those we are now making, by 
urging that ''Colleges should be self-sustaining," but we beg leave 
respectfully to submit that such an opinion proceeds from an igno- 
rance alike of the history, and of the practical working, of all suc- 
cessful institutions. It would be more just to say that Colleges 
always succeed in proportion to the degree in which they are fur- 
nished in advance with the means of education, and it is equally 
true that in proportion as they are helped, Colleges become able 
to help themselves. When they have been once permanently 
established, on a broad and liberal foundation, their own alumni, 
the voluntary generosity of private citizens, and their own 
means of extending the blessings of education, are generally 
found sufficient for their maintenance. This may be seen from 
what has been done in other States by individual donations for 
i^nch Colleges when permanently established. Within compara- 



15 

lively a few years the sums given to Colleges- in this country 
from private sources have been almost beyond belief. The follow- 
ing statement of the amounts recently received by the institutions 
named will serve to show how little room is' left for the saying, 
that "Colleges should be self-sustaining:" Amherst College, 
Mass., $350,000; Baldwin University, Ohio, $103,000; Brown 
University, B. I., $160,000; Bethlehem College, Pa., $500,000; 
Princeton College, N. J., $300,000; Cornell University, N.Y., 
$870,000; Dartmouth College, N. H., $121,000; Dickinson Col- 
lege, Pa., $100,000, (of which a large sum has been the contribu- 
tion of Marylanders;) Hamilton College, N. Y., $202,500; Har- 
vard College, Mass., $483,000; Hobart Pree College, N. Y,, 
$112,000; Lafayette College, Pa., $260,000; Lincoln College, Pa,, 
$100,000; Lombardy College, 111., $100,000; Madison College, N, 
Y., $160,000; Marietta College, Ohio, $100,000; Methodist Col- 
lege, N. Y. City, $250,000; jST. Y. University, $160,000; Baeine 
College, Wis., $100,000; Bochester University, N. Y., $200,000; 
Butgers College, N. J., $255,000; Trinity College, Conn., $100,000; 
Tuft's College, Mass., $500,000; Chicago University, HI., $285,000; 
Lewisburg University, Pa., $100,000; Washington College, Mo., 
$150,000; Waterville College, Me., $150,000; Wesleyan Univer- 
sity, Ct., $137,000; Yale College, Ct., $750,000; making an ag- 
gregate of nearly $9,000,000. 

There is no example of a great College or School which has 
not found in the affluence of its resources at once the explana- 
tion and the procuring cause of its greatness. What is it that 
has raised Oxford, in England, from a fording place for cattle, 
[Oxenford,] in the time of Alfred, to the Mecca of British Scholar- 
ship at the present day ? We answer, the wealth and splendor of 
its endowed schools, offering to the youth of England the highest 
rewards and proudest honors of learning under the conduct of 
teachers the most eminent for talent and skill in the several 
branches they profess. The History of the University of Paris, 
the parent and model of so many similar institutions in Europe, 
is little more than a history of successive endowments, giving an 
ever-widening sphere to the circle of its studies and teaching. — 
All the famous seats of learning in Germany, from the oldest, 
that of Prague, founded in the 14th century, to those of Berlin, 
Bonn and Munich, which belong to the present age, have receiv- 
ed at their origin, and at each successive stage of their expand- 
ing growth, the fostering patronage of founders and benefactors. 



And in oar own country the Colleges and Universities which 
have marked their career by the most brilliant achievements io 
the cause of literature, art and science, are precisely those which 
have been most liberally furnished with the means of education, 
as found firstly, in teachers, competent alike by their number and 
their talents to meet the diverse requirements of the age in its 
highest culminations; and secondly, in those material appliances 
and appointments which are indispensable to the adequate incul- 
cation of any branch in literature or science. Speaking of Har- 
vard University, and referring to the secret of its success, Dr. 
Felton, on the occasion of his installation as President of that in- 
stitution in the year 1860, held the following language: "From 
small beginnings it has grown into a great University, wholly in 
accordance with the liberal spirit in which Harvard College was 
founded. John Harvard's gifts, and the contributions of succes- 
sive friends of learning in its early times, were noble examples, 
small in the amount the}^ contributed, but large in proportion to 
their worldly means, and nobly have they been followed by the 
Hollises, the Alfords, the McLeans, the Gores, the Eliots, the 
Phillipses, the Lawrences, the Appletons, the Grays — time 
would fail to name them all — who have made the institution 
what it is.''"' 

How true was the testimony th-us borne by President Felton, 
when he found the source of the prosperity of Harvard University 
in the munificence of her endowments, may be readily inferred 
by all, when we state that, at the time he spoke, her record of 
"grants and donations" amounted to more than $1,200,000, ex- 
clusive of many donations to which no money value could be at- 
tached, and exclusive also of productive real estate, in some cases 
valuable city property, given at various periods by individu- 
als and the town of Cambridge, amounting in the agregate to 
4,85t acres. And this sum of $1,200,000 was exclusive also of 
donations and legacies already secured to the University, amount- 
ing to $370,000. Yast as this endowment then was, it has been 
greatly augmented by benefactions made since the report to 
w^iich we refer. 

The University of Michigan, by common consent admitted to 
be one of the most flourishing in the country, is equally an illus- 
tration of the stimulating effect produced by a generous endow- 
ment. Nothing but the magnificent revenues of this institution 
could have enabled it, in the short space of twenty-five years, to 



It 

buiid up a majestic system of education, comprising more than 
thirty distinct chairs in its Faculty, and furnishing instruction to 
more than 1,000 pupils every year, almost literally "without 
money and without price," the annual tuition fee being only $10 
for each pupil. 

And this statement naturally suggests the pregnant observa- 
tion, that when it is said "Colleges should be self-sustaining," it 
is necessarily implied that they should charge high rates for the 
instruction imparted by their Faculties, who must, on this theory, 
be maintained by the income derived from the tuition-fees; and 
hence this doctrine is tantamount to saying, that only the sons of 
the rich should have the opportunity of securing that higher edu- 
cation which Colleges and Universities are designed to foster 
and disseminate. Is this the doctrine or is this the wish of the 
people of Maryland ? 

It is because Maryland has neglected adequately and continu- 
ously to build up any one seat of learning on a basis* at once 
broad and liberal, that ^e has been doomed, for successive years, 
to witness not only the annual exodus of her sons, repairing to 
other States, more wise as well as more happy in their educa- 
tional appointments, in order to procure that higher education 
which was sought in vain within their own borders, but also to 
see the munificence of her own citizens, which might have aided 
to found and embellish a College on her own soil, diverted in 
tributary streams to swell the already abundant resources of 
flourishing institutions in other States; so true is it, that to him 
that hath shall be given, while from him that hath not shall be 
taken even that which he hath. The annual loss to the State, 
for the want of such a Home Institution, is very insufficiently 
appreciated when gauged in money alone, though measured even 
by this lower standard it is very considerable, with two hundred 
Maryland youths, as our school reports show, receiving annually 
their education outside of the State, and thus involving an annual 
drain of $100,000 upon the profits of Maryland labor and capital to 
meet an expenditure which could be so much more advantageously 
made within the State, whether regard be had to considerations 
of economy or to those infinitely higher motives which relate to 
the true welfare and the true glory of a magnanimous common- 
w^ealth. Dear as is the soil of Maryland, the soul of Maryland 
should be something dearer still. It is not enough that Mary- 

3 



18 

land should be able, borrowing a familiar classic instance, to 
point with pride to her sons as jewels of which she may justly 
boast, but it is high time to create the conditions which shall 
give to this classic instance a new construction, bv enabling her 
sons, as they rejoice in the polish and lustre which jewels alone 
can receive, to point with pride to their mother State, as the 
Cornelia who, by the provident care and generous nurture as- 
sured to her offspring at home, does not need to send her sons 
abroad that they may learn the ennobling arts by which to be- 
come her ornaments in the day of prosperity, and her support in 
the time of trial. 

It is hoped that the timeliness, as well as the propriety, of the 
plea here made in the cause of higher education in Maryland, 
will be admitted by all, and especially by the friends of public 
education in this State. The Board have sought to make St. 
John's College an integral part of that system, and they point to 
the fact that in other States, most distinguished for the excellence 
and the universality of the popular instn%tion which they afford, 
the College, the Normal School and the High School, have been 
found essential to the existence of anything like a complete and 
harmonious scheme of Common School education. We cannot 
have education without educators, and where shall we look for 
the conductors of our High Schools, or for the teachers in our 
Public Schools and Academies if not to the seats of higher learn-' 
ing in the State? It is equally derogatory to the pride and inju- 
rious to the best interests of the State, that any native Mary- 
lander should be excluded from this service for the want of 
proper training in the elements and the art of education. When 
the facilities for procuring that training shall be made more 
widely accessible, we may be' sure that such a reproach will dis- 
appear, along with the cause to which it must be referred, so 
long as the educational opportunities of the State are not com- 
mensurate with the educational wants of the State under this 
head. The harmonious working, the popularity and the success 
of any system of public education are involved in this mutual 
interdependence of its several parts, considered as a Maryland 
system for Maryland youth. The Primary School will not 
thoroughly fulfil its mission unless there be an avenue open 
between it and the College; as the College will not thorough- 
ly fulfil its mission unless it furnishes teachers to the schools 



IS 

From which, in turn, it annually draws the recruits who fill its 
'classes.''' 

The Visitors and Governors of St. John's College confidently 
trust that they may venture to address this appeal in behalf of 
higher education in Maryland, if, with peculiar emphasis, so also 
with peculiar propriety, at the present time, when, by the steps 
they have taken for the diflfasionof the educational advantages of the 
College in all parts of the State alike, they suppose themselveSj 
at least, to have given an earnest of the "liberal things" they 
have devised in the interest of their beloved commonwealth. — 
They aspire to make St. John's College what it was designed to 
be, "a Seminary of universal learning," from which the seeds of 
knowledge shall be spread broadcast throughout the State, and it 
is in furtherance of this aspiration that they now authorize the 
two principal of&cers of their institution, to bring equally its 
wants and its advantages more directly hom.e to the knowledge 
of the people. The traditional hospitality and courtesy of Mary- 
landers happily dispense^ the Board from the necessity of invok- 
ing for their representatives that audience to which they are 
entitled by the nature of the public service they have been 
requested to undertake, and it therefore only remains to commend 
them, and the cause they advocate, to the best consideration of 
the people of the whole State. 

THOS. SWANN, Ex-Officio 
President of the Board. 

Jno. Thomson Mason, 

Sec'ry of the Board. 



* At a meeting of the Presidents and Secretaries of the Public Schooi 
Boards of the several counties in the State, and of the Examiners in each 
county, held in Baltimore on the 11th of June 1868, it was unanimously re- 
solved, that they would "cordially co-operate with the Board of Visitors 
and Governors of St. John's College, in executing the system of State 
Scholarships, and in building up that time-honored institution." The Mary- 
land Public School Teachers' Association, at their Annual Session in Balti- 
more on the 16th of July last, unanimously adopted a similar resolution, 
and recommended that the Board of School Commissioners in each county 
of the State should maintain one Prize Scholar on the foundation, by paying 
his board in the College Commons. This measure has been already adopted 
by the Board of Anne Arundel county. These facts suffice to show in what 
light the advantages offered by St. John's College are viewed by the patrons 
and agents of Public Education in the State* 



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